I was typing blind ther, I'll re-state: Labour are too interested in keeping poor people poor as they know poor people will vote Labour. Labour does not represent ambition and prefers to keep people down.

Leeds and Liverpool, correctly described by Duke as 'performing badly', were LibDem or Tory/LibDem councils until a couple of years ago. During the distinguished rule of the LibDems in Liverpool, the council was at one point rated by the Audit Commission as 'the worst-performing in the country'. Give me Manchester any day!

Liverpool has pretty much been devastated by the Labour led council in the 70's & 80's. The town clerk was very much Liverpool's Richard Leese, an ego far more important than the actual council tax payers. For some reason, I can't imagine Liverpool aving anything other than a Labour council but that's perhaps just a stereotype of a scouser.

Leeds operated pretty well under Lib Dem / Conservatives. The fact it doesn't have a tram system is typically Labour trophy seeking. When they had a Labor council, they started compulsary buying land and making room for a tram and ran out of money (bit like Labour did in Manchester out to Wythenshawe). Trams are pretty rubbish unless it's just a case of tranforming an exiting railway into light rail, as soon as they get to roads, they cause congestion as they are an inefficient use of space.

I recall a Labour councillor coming to drum up support at my old house in Leeds. I pointed out that they spend a lot of money and personallly, I see very little that benefits me. He pointed out that the street lights had recently been changed outside my home - I protested, the street was only 6 years old, the street lights didn't need changing - the answer from the Labour man, we had some budget left ver!! FGS! if you have budet left over, reduce council tax, don't fritter it away! Unfortunately, Labour's thinking is to spend not save.

As I say Dave, you are comparing areas that have been predominately Labour and you claim they have failed bady and Manchester is the best of a bad bunch. I'd argue that proves my point that Labour councils tend to do nothing to help an area lift it's economy. They are too interested in keeping people poor as they know por people will vote Labour. Labour does not represent ambition.

Leeds and Liverpool, correctly described by Duke as 'performing badly', were LibDem or Tory/LibDem councils until a couple of years ago. During the distinguished rule of the LibDems in Liverpool, the council was at one point rated by the Audit Commission as 'the worst-performing in the country'. Give me Manchester any day!

Exclusive by Jennifer Williams 4/ 6/2008STOCKPORT Council wasted £11,000 of local taxpayers’ money erecting a huge fence that broke its own planning rules - before tearing it down weeks later.The authority made its blunder after police raised concerns about car crime at a car park in Marple Bridge.In response, the Council decided to build a two metre fence around the land next to the Midland Inn on Brabyns Brow - but failed to consult its own planning department.The fence turned out to break the Council’s own rules on building in a conservation area, so they pulled it down.To add to the red faces, the police vehicle crime information which had prompted the fence to be built in the first place turned out to be incorrect.In fact there had never been any need for a fence at all!Curious Marple Bridge resident Andrew George reported the disappearing fence to his local councillor, and was stunned when he found out the story behind it.He said: "When I went past it last weekend they were taking it down, so I emailed my councillor and she passed on my query to the Council."It turned out they hadn’t realised it was a conservation area and hadn’t given themselves planning permission."So they told themselves off and took it down."I thought, wow, that’s really stupid. It must have been 200 or 300 feet of shiny new green fence - what an absolute waste of our money."Stephen Picot, a Stockport activist in the Taxpayers’ Alliance, added: "I would regard it as farcical."These people don’t realise they need to check the relevant legislation. We assume when they do these things that they know what they’re doing but very often they don’t."The costly fence has now been put in storage for use at a later date, and Mr George’s councillor, Shan Alexander, said she hoped such mistakes would not be repeated.Also responding to Mr George’s query, Stockport Council’s Head of Traffic Services, Ian Thompson, said: "It would appear that the original crime figures from the police weren’t as accurate as they should have been, and subsequent analysis of the figures for this car park were actually a lot lower and a fence should not have been recommended by them for this particular location."

3 December 2011

Dear Stockport Borough Council,

Please advise from your records of any prosecutions,if any, of convictions and awards made against Stockport Council and it's associated subsidaries or other owned corporate bodies recorded since May 2007.Please include, if any, "out of court" sentlements or awards of compensation

Where a conviction or award has been made, please advise the name of the council official responsible for the department involved and the elected representative having executive responsibily,at the time of complaint

Please also advise of the total amount of compensatory awards or ex gratia payments made to individuals as a result of any action taken by them against the council

4 January 2012 ,

I am writing in response to your request for information below

The response to your request has been prepared by the relevant Council service and is as follows:

After searching our records, the Council has only been able to find one prosecution that was brought against it. This related to an offence under Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act etc. 1974 in April 2009 in which it was fined £11,500. The offence involved the Parks service. The relevant Service Director was Mr Hudson and the relative Executive member was Cllr Shan Alexander, Executive Councillor (Leisure) for 2008/09.

4 January 2012

Dear FOI Officer,

Thank you for your response of which I note you state that there has only been once incidence of Stockport MBC being prosecuted and fined. The offence related to the Parks dept and a fine of£11500.00 was imposed

Were the relevent service director and Council executive liable to any form of Diciplinary action as a result of this prosection and if so was any taken and if so what?

Yours sincerely,

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

24 January 2012

From: FOI Officer Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

24 January 2012

Dear Mr Alan

I am writing in response to your request for information below

Before addressing your request below, the Council would like to correct the information previously provided to you in response to your earlier request. In that response, we stated that the relevant Executive Member was Councillor Shan Alexander; however this was incorrect. Councillor Alexander was the Executive Member at the time of the court hearing in 2009; however at the time of the incident itself in 2006, the relevant Executive Member was Councillor Pam King. We apologise for this error.

In your request below, you have asked whether or not any Council officers or Councillors were subject to any disciplinary action as a result of this case and if so, what that action was. The Council does hold information about this matter as we will know whether or not employees were disciplined; however we cannot provide any information about whether or not individuals were subject to disciplinary action. This is because the information is exempt under section 40(2) Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). Whether or not someone has been subject to disciplinary action – even if it is just to state that they have not – is personal data because it relates to them and tells you something about them. Section 40(2) states that information which constitutes personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) is exempt if its disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles. The first data protection principle requires the Council to ensure it processes personal data fairly. Even senior employees and councillors have a certain expectation of privacy regarding their professional and related personal lives and disclosing information about whether or not they have been subject to disciplinary action – even to confirm that they have not – would be unfair as it would be disclosing their personal data into the public domain. On this basis, the information is exempt and will not be provided.

Logged

“Every process in your organization has a customer, and without a customer a process has no purpose. "

Duke writes 'You have compared Manchester with other cities that have endured prolonged periods of Labour local government and all performing badly. Compare with say Southampton, Reading, Basingstoke, Oxford, Cambridge and these towns and cities have enjoyed prolonged economic growth which eclipses Manchester'.My point, Duke, is that the three cities listed at the beginning there have had various controlling parties over recent years, and as you say, they have not enjoyed the scale of regeneration which we have seen in Manchester, where Labour has been in continuous control for years. The other towns which you list are relatively small and not in any way comparable, and being in the prosperous south have not suffered anything like the economic and industrial decline of Manchester in the mid-20th century.As for Leeds, I too know it very well, and it is in a sorry state. Its successive councils have tried hard to put it on the map, but it is just a pale shadow of Manchester: no trams, no proper concert hall, no Premiership football club, and a pathetic little airport. Good university - but then, so is Manchester.

Steptoe and Son - I agree - the point of my post was to highlight how utterly pointless it is to keep posting non-information about some fictitious supermarket instead of getting on with other much more relevant issues!! Strikes me now is the time to close down ANY reference to the bl++dy supermarket issue on this thread and put it back in its [fictitious and overblown] box!!

Can the Conservative candidate let us know his standpoint regarding the supermarket on Hibbert Lane?

Carl's view is given here:

"Hi Miss Marple,

Although I run a business and I see the need to have new jobs created in the area, I do think an ASDA there (and the second supermarket in Marple) would be to the detriment of the local small shops in Marple centre. Also, Hilbert lane in my view is really not designed to take the amount of traffic it would need to for the supermarket. So in answer to your question, I am against the plans for those reasons.

I do think the site should be kept for education. If the plans do go though and you want the local shops to stay you need to use them, I can't stress that enough. Marple North did a survey recently, it showed two-thirds where against and one-third for another supermarket in Marple.

I hope that answers your question."

Thanks for that Duke. So there's no difference in position regarding the proposed supermarket between the Lib Dem and Conservative candidates. Having attended Area Committees for a few years (when you could get a seat...long before the supermarket issue) and having had some involvement in a couple of issues in Marple, I'll base my vote on policy, track records, contribution to the community as a whole, commitment to the community etc. Call me old fashioned but I'll take an overall view. Luckily, I expect many people in Marple will do this and what is worryingly looking like a pitchfork waving mob will not hold sway. There's been a high level of community action and involvement in Marple for years and the highfalutin stance of some of the anti-supermarket lobby (not to mention some of the baser ways they have attempted to denigrate people) is laughable...and it leads to pointless posts such as the one above.

While we can see why certain people are fixated with an election candidate's "position" in relation to a fictitious new supermarket, for which no land has been purchased in an area where a supermarket would be allowed permission, and unsurprisingly therefore no planning application submitted, why are we not equally interested in these candidates' positions in relation o having a supermarket in Marple at all? The forum seems to assume "one supermarket good, two terrible"....yet I don't see anyone campaigning to boycott the Co-Op, thereby driving it out of business and forcing us back into the good old corner shops.

If supermarkets are such a malign influence, why is no-one taking up an "Anti-Co-Op" stance? Arguably better to have a Waitrose or Asda on the Co-Op site. Come on, armchair anarchists and alleged-supermarket-hand-wringers of the community.....stop everyone shopping at the Co-Op!! Get rid of the supermarket you HAVE got!! Take up the cause of the little shop here and now, today!! Or is that not quite as exciting, hand-wringers?

I enjoyed Duke's parody of a Daily Mail column, but it completely misses the point! Let's look at the big picture.

I've lived in Greater Manchester almost continuously since I came here as a student in the 60s. The city has been simply transformed over that time - it is unrecognisable compared with the depressing run-down place it was then. Compared with other cities such as Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, Manchester City Council has presided over an astonishingly successful period of regeneration. And a lot of that success must be down to key figures such as Graham Stringer, Richard Leese and Howard Bernstein, and to the successive Labour councils which they have led so successfully.

That's very cheap Dave, if you don't have a valid argument against a slightly right of centre point of view why not dismiss it with "parody of a Daily Mail column" then you will not need to address anything that is said.

You have compared Manchester with other cities that have endured prolonged periods of Labour local government and all performing badly. Compare with say Southampton, Reading, Basingstoke, Oxford, Cambridge and these towns and cities have enjoyed prolonged economic growth which eclipses Manchester and that growth is down to private enterprise not just some spike in public sector jobs and a fashionable interest in football.

Manchester has only become more attractive due to the explosion of interest in English football for which Manchester united have been particularly lucky to see their period of success correspond with that worldwide interest along with having the story of Munich to go with it. Otherwise, there is little that Manchester offers than Leeds, I'd say Leeds is a nicer City as someone who has lived in both.

I enjoyed Duke's parody of a Daily Mail column, but it completely misses the point! Let's look at the big picture.

I've lived in Greater Manchester almost continuously since I came here as a student in the 60s. The city has been simply transformed over that time - it is unrecognisable compared with the depressing run-down place it was then. Compared with other cities such as Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, Manchester City Council has presided over an astonishingly successful period of regeneration. And a lot of that success must be down to key figures such as Graham Stringer, Richard Leese and Howard Bernstein, and to the successive Labour councils which they have led so successfully.

Can the Conservative candidate let us know his standpoint regarding the supermarket on Hibbert Lane?

Carl's view is given here:

"Hi Miss Marple,

Although I run a business and I see the need to have new jobs created in the area, I do think an ASDA there (and the second supermarket in Marple) would be to the detriment of the local small shops in Marple centre. Also, Hilbert lane in my view is really not designed to take the amount of traffic it would need to for the supermarket. So in answer to your question, I am against the plans for those reasons.

I do think the site should be kept for education. If the plans do go though and you want the local shops to stay you need to use them, I can't stress that enough. Marple North did a survey recently, it showed two-thirds where against and one-third for another supermarket in Marple.